1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a resin, especially to an organic-inorganic composite resin with improved toughness and hardness.
The present invention also relates to a coating composition, which comprises said organic-inorganic composite resin, and a hardener. The coating composition simultaneously has improved toughness and hardness.
The present invention further relates to a reinforced substrate, which is a substrate coated with said coating composition to prevent the substrate surface from scratches or to avoid shattered substrate fragments when the substrate is impacted.
2. Description of the Related Art
Glass is characterized by its high transparency, chemical resistance, heat resistance, and other properties, so it is often used as panels of electronic products (such as liquid crystal screens, cell phones, tablet PCs or the like). However, glass is fragile and have poor scratch resistance and poor impact resistance, so glass may not only be damaged and break but also generate shattered glass fragments that could hurt users or surrounding people when the glass is impacted. Moreover, electronic devices are lighter and thinner recently, and the thickness of a glass substrate has accordingly decreased. Nevertheless, this change exposes the disadvantages of glass. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the glass substrate.
When glass is used as substrates, two means can be conducted to improve the glass substrates. One is adjusting the composition of glass itself to improve the properties of the glass substrate, while the other is coating a strengthening coating on the surface of the glass substrate to resist scratching and impact.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,327,011 B2 discloses a thin glass substrate of a liquid crystal display device, which comprises a glass substrate and a protective layer formed on the back surface of the glass substrate. The protective layer comprises an organic layer and an inorganic layer, wherein the inorganic layer has enhanced compressive stress and the organic layer has a low viscosity coefficient, which are both used to strengthen the glass substrate for preventing cracks which occur due to an external impact. However, the organic layer and inorganic layer are double layers which need to be applied separately, so the procedure for producing the thin glass substrate comprises two steps of application, which complicates the procedure and increases the chance of obtaining more thin glass substrates with inferior quality.
TW 200916311 discloses coating a glass substrate with an organic layer containing a thermosetting resin to strengthen the toughness of the substrate. However, compared with the thin glass substrate disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,327,011 B2, the glass substrate of TW 200916311 merely has an organic layer and cannot generate superior compressive stress. Although the procedure requires shorter time, the glass substrate does not have sufficient protection.
Overall, the relevant industries are searching for a coating of a glass substrate which generates the desired hardness and toughness, provides the substrate with full protection, and makes the procedure simple.